Day 59 Reflections Across the Coordinate Plane

Teacher Note**Starting in this class I'm making posts every week rather than everyday. 

6th Grade Math Standards: Understand a rational number as a point on the number line. Extend number line diagrams and
coordinate axes familiar from previous grades to represent points on the line and in the plane with
negative number coordinates.
a. Recognize opposite signs of numbers as indicating locations on opposite sides of 0 on the
number line; recognize that the opposite of the opposite of a number is the number itself,
e.g., –(–3) = 3, and that 0 is its own opposite.
b. Understand signs of numbers in ordered pairs as indicating locations in quadrants of the
coordinate plane; recognize that when two ordered pairs differ only by signs, the locations of
the points are related by reflections across one or both axes.
c. Find and position integers and other rational numbers on a horizontal or vertical number line
diagram; find and position pairs of integers and other rational numbers on a coordinate plane

The Learning Objective: Reflect a point across an axis

Quote of the Day: “Do those things necessary to bring forth your personal best and don’t lose sleep worrying about the competition. Let the competition lose sleep worrying about you.” - John Wooden

Agenda:

1. Jumpstart
2. Thanksgiving Recap
3. Reflection Experimenting (hands on with the boards and no writing)
4. Reflections Notes
5. Reflections Practice
6. Reflections HW

The Assessment: Reflections Practice was a homework ticket starter and the reflections experimenting involved me circumventing the classroom.

Homework: Pg 398 #4 & 5, Pg 399 #13, Pg. 400 all, pg. 401 #31, pg. 402 #32-34 & Weekly Quiz #9

My Glass Half-Full Take: I enjoy the experimenting component. Giving the students an opportunity to talk and see the math, and not write is sometimes a good remedy for getting students that have trouble engaging more engaged. It's also a great way to make sense of patterns and make generalizations about what happens in a reflection.

One Thing to Do Differently: I let students circle the term x or y axis in a problem with a colored pencil and then trace over that axis to help them see which axis a point gets reflected over. I didn't emphasize that that they have to do this initially in my first two classes. By the third class I realized that was a mistake as students were opting not to circle and highlight the axis, and that resulted in wrong answers (reflections in the wrong quadrant).